does mate actually have cancer causing properties or does the cancer come about from long term sipping a hot drink through a straw?
My reading of that literature is that there isn't a lot of evidence one way or another. However , last time I looked at it it seemed like the most likely cause was from how some mates are smoked, and that unsmoked mate didn't have the same cancer risk. Take this with a grain of salt though, because although I followed that pretty closely for awhile, I stopped at some point and it's been a couple of years since.
Any source of what brands/varieties are smoked vs not?
I’m able to get quite a few types imported from South America, but from my attempts at translating the packaging and trying to Google things, I can’t tell what’s smoked or unsmoked.